A Quiet Simple Life

Sallie Schaaf Borrink

Answered Prayer – Fawns

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View Full Post with Embedded ContentAnswered Prayer – Fawns

Last year we had a brief glimpse of a fawn in the woods, but never saw one come out into our yard where we could see it clearly. Caroline greatly desired to see some fawns on a more regular basis. (Okay, I did too!) I told her that we should start praying about it because the Lord could certainly bring it to pass. We started praying in the winter and prayed about it off and on through the spring and summer.

There was a clearly pregnant doe coming daily this summer who we named Cornelia. Cornelia would sometimes rest on the edge of the woods and our lawn. She then stopped coming around so we hoped she would come back with her babies. (We’ve observed all the various deer so regularly we can readily distinguish most of them from the others.)

In the end, the Lord didn’t just bring us one fawn. He brought three.

There is one singleton and a set of twins. In the picture above, you can see the twins. The singleton is just out of the camera range off to the right, but all three were here together that evening a number of weeks ago.

We see the singleton every day right now with her mother. The twins we see off and on.

This is another reminder in my life that God truly cares about the little things that matter to us.

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Morning Hope – Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

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View Full Post with Embedded ContentMorning Hope – Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and slipped away. When the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the weeds also appeared.

The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

So the servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”

Then Jesus dismissed the crowds and went into the house. His disciples came to Him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”

He replied, “The One who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed represents the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

As the weeds are collected and burned in the fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom every cause of sin and all who practice lawlessness. And they will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

He who has ears, let him hear.”

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible, BSB
Copyright ©2016, 2020 by Bible Hub
Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

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The INFP Child and Her Stuffed Animals

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View Full Post with Embedded ContentThe INFP Child and Her Stuffed Animals

Over the years I’ve invested a lot of energy into understanding my child and the way God created her as an individual. I’ve written about that journey from many different angles in the hope it would help other parents who find my posts.

Lately I’ve been reading more about the INFP type now that Caroline and I have determined it best describes her. In the midst of all these years of parenting, I didn’t spend much time at all trying to figure out Caroline’s personality type for a variety of reasons I don’t need to get into there. But it’s interesting how when I look at it now it draws together many different ideas I’ve engaged with over the years.

I made this observation some time ago in Gifted Children Don’t Know Life Any Other Way:

One of the things we’ve learned about Caroline’s particular bent is that playing with stuffed animals and acting out their stories is not an option. It is a daily necessity. It is like sleep, food, air, and water. It is a basic need in her life. It’s not even a need for play. It is a need for how she processes information. If she doesn’t get it, it negatively impacts her just as it would if we denied her food or sleep or water. We know this as a fact because when she doesn’t get this kind of play time, something in her dies a bit until that need is met.

And she doesn’t know how to be any other way.

That is her reality and how she is wired just like I don’t understand how people can go through life and not be soaking up information all day long.

All gifted children have their “thing” and they don’t know life without it. It is as natural to them as breathing. It is a necessary part of their life. It would be easy for me to look at Caroline’s play with stuffed animals and think it is a childish thing, but it’s not about the stuffed animals, per se. It’s about what they allow her to do and a huge need they meet in her life. They aren’t toys. They are tools.

I don’t know where it is the INFP personality and where it is the giftedness, but it’s all there.

In a description of the INFP, this observation is made:

INFPs never seem to lose their sense of wonder. One might say they see life through rose-colored glasses. It’s as though they live at the edge of a looking-glass world where mundane objects come to life, where flora and fauna take on near-human qualities.

INFP children often exhibit this in a ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ fashion, switching from reality to fantasy and back again. With few exceptions, it is the NF child who readily develops imaginary playmates (as with Anne of Green Gables’s “bookcase girlfriend”–her own reflection) and whose stuffed animals come to life like the Velveteen Rabbit and the Skin Horse.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Caroline and David played with her stuffed animals for a minimum of an hour or two every single day for years. Not weeks. Not months. Literally years. Hours every day with very few days missed. It was as much a part of our daily routine as eating and sleeping. They made up personalities and stories for the vast majority of the stuffed animals. One particular group of stuffed animals has an entire on-going story that went on for years. They still talk about it and reference it to this day. Aspects of it have become part of our family vocabulary.

Keep in mind that Caroline is an only child who is homeschooled so we are her playmates and daily companions. How this would have played out if we had more children or she had a daddy who worked outside the home, I do not know. But God in His Providence gave Caroline a daddy who was available, creatively minded, and chose to invest this time in her.

If you are a parenting an INFP child, your child may have a similar need. It might not be of the same intensity. Your options for meeting that need might be different. But it is a need that should be met. Remember, your child didn’t decide to be this way. She was created this way by God. It’s all she knows. Our responsibility as parents is to be a good steward of our child’s way of interacting with the world and slowly teach her to take over that responsibility for herself as she prepares to enter the adult world.

In My Shop

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Life During the First Two Weeks of Homeschool

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View Full Post with Embedded ContentLife During the First Two Weeks of Homeschool

Caroline and I have completed our first two weeks of homeschooling this year. It’s gone well overall and I think we’ve settled into a flexible rhythm that works for both of us. But it’s been an adjustment for each of us in different ways. I’m getting up an hour to an hour and a half earlier. We’re starting much earlier in the morning than we ever have. It’s all good, but it’s a big shift for me since prior to this year she always wanted to start later.

Just before the start of our homeschool year, I created a collection of themed playlists so if I didn’t have time to write a post I could sit down and quickly record something to share. Great plan, right? Except about half way through each day my voice starts to go. Since we do a lot of reading aloud and discussion on top of the subjects where I “teach” Caroline, my voice gets a workout each day. I’m very glad I made a change at the last minute and added a second video course. From the vocal standpoint alone, I can’t imagine teaching another subject.

Along with all this, there has been a lot of sad circumstances in our somewhat extended circles which has weighed me down quite a bit at times. Over one recent weekend, I felt a crushing weight of sadness on my chest all weekend. (I won’t go into any more details, but I did address it on my other website if you want to read about it: Time To Press On.)

Truth be told, I’m more than a little disappointed we’re halfway through September and I’ve done very little blogging since there is so much to write about this time of year. But I made the decision a few months ago that home and family comes first and I was moving blogging down the list as a priority. In the past, I would more often than not choose to work on blogging rather than doing somewhat important but lower priority homemaking or family things. I’m not doing that any longer. Home, family, and homeschooling come before blogging.

So does my need for time to myself which has been in very short supply lately. I have nothing to give to others if I don’t have time to be refreshed. I’ve had to severely limit my interactions with others outside my immediate family so I have enough energy for homeschooling and my homemaking responsibilities. The past four years have taken a toll on me as an INFJ. Parenting an INFP daughter during the past four years has also been emotionally draining. I could wish things were different in the world or that we weren’t both deeply feeling women with a strong sense of justice, but that’s the way it is.

So I adjust accordingly and continue to trust God to lead and protect us each day.

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Morning Hope – Job 38:1-38

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View Full Post with Embedded ContentMorning Hope – Job 38:1-38

Job 38:1-38

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

“Who is this who obscures My counsel
by words without knowledge?

Now brace yourself like a man;
I will question you, and you shall inform Me.

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding.

Who fixed its measurements? Surely you know!
Or who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its foundations set,
or who laid its cornerstone,

while the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Who enclosed the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,

when I made the clouds its garment
and thick darkness its blanket,

when I fixed its boundaries
and set in place its bars and doors,

and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther;
here your proud waves must stop’?

In your days, have you commanded the morning
or assigned the dawn its place,

that it might spread to the ends of the earth
and shake the wicked out of it?

The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its hills stand out like the folds of a garment.

Light is withheld from the wicked,
and their upraised arm is broken.

Have you journeyed to the vents of the sea
or walked in the trenches of the deep?

Have the gates of death been revealed to you?
Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

Have you surveyed the extent of the earth?
Tell Me, if you know all this.

Where is the way to the home of light?
Do you know where darkness resides,

so you can lead it back to its border?
Do you know the paths to its home?

Surely you know, for you were already born!
And the number of your days is great!

Have you entered the storehouses of snow
or observed the storehouses of hail,

which I hold in reserve for times of trouble,
for the day of war and battle?

In which direction is the lightning dispersed,
or the east wind scattered over the earth?

Who cuts a channel for the flood
or clears a path for the thunderbolt,

to bring rain on a barren land,
on a desert where no man lives,

to satisfy the parched wasteland
and make it sprout with tender grass?

Does the rain have a father?
Who has begotten the drops of dew?

From whose womb does the ice emerge?
Who gives birth to the frost from heaven,

when the waters become hard as stone
and the surface of the deep is frozen?

Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades
or loosen the belt of Orion?

Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear and her cubs?

Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set their dominion over the earth?

Can you command the clouds
so that a flood of water covers you?

Can you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

Who has put wisdom in the heart
or given understanding to the mind?

Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Or who can tilt the water jars of the heavens

when the dust hardens into a mass
and the clods of earth stick together?

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible, BSB
Copyright ©2016, 2020 by Bible Hub
Used by Permission. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

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Do It Now & Don’t Put It Down

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View Full Post with Embedded ContentDo It Now & Don’t Put It Down

There are two things I’ve endeavored to do more consistently (but not perfectly) in recent years. Both choices have enabled me be more efficient and positive about my homemaking.

First of all, I’ve tried to choose to “Do it now” rather than put off some small task. For example, Caroline discovered today a little bit of mending she needed done. Rather than put it off for another day, I put on a short video I wanted to listen to and simply did the mending while I listened. So many times I let mending needs languish for ridiculous amounts of time. When I finally sit down and do the task, it takes less than ten minutes. In the meantime, I’ve looked at it more times than I can count which has caused me both the stress/anxiety of not doing it in addition to the wasted time spent looking at it and not doing anything. So I am endeavoring to do things now rather than wait for a more “opportune time” when I “feel like” doing something. 

The other thing I’ve worked to do is not put things down to deal with later. An example of this is taking something from my office/homeschool room on the second floor down to the main floor and setting it on the dining room table to take to the basement the next time I need to go down there. I now tell myself to keep walking and simply deal with it. It usually takes less then a minute and then it is just done. So I have been focusing on the need to tell myself to do the task and not leave it for another hour or day. These are usually little quick things that won’t take much time, but if I don’t “feel in the mood” to deal with it then it’s easy to simply make the choice to leave it. 

Neither practice is earth-shattering or original, but they are better habits I’ve been endeavoring to develop. Both are definitely improvements in my homemaking. 

Homemaking In My Shop 

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